


Everything Must Burn

by ronia



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Animal Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Conversations, Gen, Historical References, Poison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 23:04:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12994461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronia/pseuds/ronia
Summary: Etta and Diana are tasked with tracking down "Doctor Poison."





	Everything Must Burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psocoptera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psocoptera/gifts).



_I will put no date on this. I am uncertain of it. But it is winter. It is cold, now. I can easily wrap a scarf around my face and no one will notice. My mask was gone, blown away and burnt up in the fires of my hydrogen gas, and I am glad. It would feel like Ludendorff’s hands framing my face, thumb along the hollow of my cheek, and I want none of it._

_The first thing I did want, once I had run far enough to want anything, wasn’t food or drink, but pen and paper. I wanted to write before I wanted to breathe. I did not care what I drank or ate, any food is poisoned in my mouth. I suppose that is appropriate. But nothing can contaminate ink on paper, even when my thoughts are poison they are pure, and powerful. I cannot abide the thought of losing them. So let me tell you how I found you. First I found a village, and then I found a well. Stealing, it turns out, is easy, especially just a few drops. And then I am the doctor, who cures the sudden outbreak. A blessing after the war. It’s a shame, but then, that is what’s needed without a war._

_First I bought pen and paper, and then a scarf, and then food. And then travel. Any travel heading west. Cars, horse-drawn carts. Any train station is more likely a pile of bricks now. And I avoid the soldiers. At checkpoints, I look away, shy and ashamed. My documents were lost when I was injured. If there is one emotion I have learned to recognize, it is pity. If I can’t make them choke on it, at least perhaps it can get me home. The Germans will want to hang me as much as the French. My home was neutral. No one will ask me what side I was on. No one thinks to ask to me now. Maybe it is that I am a woman._

_It seems impossible, with_ la femme formidable _on the newspapers. I see her first in Paris. I spend precious coins on her ink. I think I am supposed to feel envy, but there is just curiosity. Such a strange creature, who appeared so suddenly in the end. Who lifted a tank over her head, as easy as a sack of flour and did not crush me with it. That is very strange. I think I would crush anyone, if I had that power. Perhaps I would crush myself. And yet I read and reread her words, stare at her photo. She looks like a soldier, not the fire-eyed monster who ripped up concrete like an old carpet. She is a cruder kind of weapon, not the elegant compounds I designed to kill but not to smash, leave even the bodies intact if lifeless. And yet, there is potential. I’ve wondered where she comes from, how did she come to be our enemy. Could we make more of her._

_And then, I turn the page, and inside I find my face. With my mask. Another reason it is better gone. I had hoped I would be assumed dead, but they found the first village I came across. It couldn’t be helped. It doesn’t matter now. I will need to be cautious, but I will reach home._

* * *

"All those artists do rather go on, don't they?"

Etta shivered a moment, as she undid the buttons of her coat. It was a deep, cold December night outside, a kind of winter Diana herself was not used to, even if the cold had little effect on her. She was sad, however, that snow no longer held the magic she'd seen during her first snowfall in Veld. Now, after walking Paris streets filled with slush, and brushing it off her own coat, she could see why Etta saw it as more of a nuisance. Yet it seemed a shame to become so quickly accustomed to it.

"I don't know," Diana answered, removing her coat. "I enjoyed it. It reminded me of the debates the scholars held on Themyscira." 

She folded her coat over her arm, and then offered to take Etta's, and hung them both in the small closet. "Other than the men, of course."

"Yes, of course, that." Etta took off her hat, red curls still disheveled by the winter wind. "They certainly didn't know what to make of you."

Diana closed the closet door, looking back to her. "What do you mean?"

Etta blinked, pausing from patting snow from her hat. She'd thought it was obvious, but then, for all her unfathomable talents, Diana did often miss what anyone else might find obvious. But it was happening less, as Diana no longer looked and acted as though she had burst fully armed off some ancient frieze. Now she simply seemed to be speaking a different language than everyone else. Ironic, considering just tonight she had heard Diana converse in English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew.

"Well…" she moved to hang her hat on the rack by the door. "With that photo in the papers, and the way you talked to them, when they let you get a word in – you often knew as much or more about _their_ subject, art, I don't think they were expecting it even from _la femme formidable_ –"

"But the host was a woman."

"Yes," Etta shrugged. She shivered a bit again, and walked across the apartment to start a fire in the corner stove. "I expect they're used to her. Would you like a cup of tea before turning in?"

"All right." Diana retrieved and filled the kettle, letting Etta choose the tea from the tin. The fire in the small stove was soon crackling pleasantly, warming up the small room. It was a safe house for British intelligence, comfortable enough between the two of them, though Diana was beginning to grow restless with the arrangement. She wasn't sure what she wanted, exactly. The Great War was over, but she could not return home. She did not really understand the workings of Man's World, and she knew that. And what she did know of them – well, they made no sense to her, the large groups of men in newspaper photographs, deciding for millions what would happen now. It was strange to see Etta, to think of the women at the front, in Veld, the poisons doctor, and yet these papers seemed to think women had no part in war.

Diana was not sure what she would have done, otherwise. But Etta had come here to Paris with her, and she felt she could not leave her now.

Etta pulled two cups from a cupboard, and soon they were sitting at a small table with hot tea. Wind was still blustering at the dark windows, and for the first few minutes, they drank in silence. Etta added sugar to hers, and Diana savored the _tap_ of Etta's spoon against the cup, of the whistling against glass.

"I don't think I know what to make of them, either," Diana said, at last.

"The artists?" Etta asked.

"The men." Diana raised her eyebrows, then added, "And the women. There are all these rules, and very strange ideas I've never actually seen before. And sometimes you use them, and other times you don't."

"You don't have rules on your island of women?"

"We d –" But Diana stopped. There were rules, the rule not to train her when she was a girl. The rule to never leave the island. She had followed neither of them. There were rules in the senators' debates, of when to speak, and for how long, carefully negotiated to ensure everyone was heard. There were unwritten rules for gatherings and feasts, about when it was polite to speak, and who should speak first and who should defer, in a web of seniority that had spun around the Queen. 

And yet – 

"Our rules were for our protection –"

(The ones she'd broken.) "– and to ensure fairness and respect among the Amazons. But I don't see how it could be the same here. You said you cannot vote because you are a woman, that the men don't think I could know so much about art, but there were women writers and painters there tonight, and they are 'used' to them? Great Hera, Sameer said he could not be an actor, because he is the wrong color – what can that mean? Who does that protect? It shows no fairness or respect."

Etta pressed her lips together. It was rather something, to have such a mirror turned on your world this way. She'd think it might be as though Diana had stepped through a looking glass, like in those Carroll stories, yet that meant it was _her_ world that was so odd and disturbing. 

"I don't know about that, Diana," she said. "We often have to change the world, right?"

Diana didn't look very satisfied with this answer, and Etta didn't blame her. But it had been a long night, with many conversations her mind had to race to hold on to, and Etta wasn't sure what more she could offer her. 

But the next words from Diana were about the last she expected.

"Some of them were quite attractive, though." Diana smiled, her soft, small, sugar-sweet smile that in turn made her somehow even _more_ beautiful. "Are Gertrude and Alice married?"

Etta nearly choked on her tea. She coughed a few times, pressing a handkerchief to her lips, and Diana raised her eyebrows again. 

"I – what?" Etta managed.

"That is something you do, right?"

Etta recalled Diana's words in her mind, trying to make sure she'd heard her right. "It's – it's something _men_ and women do, Diana."

Diana stared. "Why on earth only men and women?"

"Well, it's – it's –" Etta struggled for several seconds. She looked down at her tea, starting to stir it with her spoon again, for no reason other than to busy herself with something else. She felt color rise in her face, and stirred a little faster. "It's not – well thought of, women with other women –"

"But they are?"

"I – I suppose, yes."

Diana sighed, her sweet smile fading. She leaned back in her chair, eyes on her tea, watching it cool. "I don't understand this, Etta. What does it matter, whom one takes as a lover? If they are happy, and you are happy."

"Is –" Etta's eyes were rather fixed on her teacup. "Is it – something you're planning to do – now?"

"Not now." Diana was also looking at her cup, though only to let her focus her thoughts. Now – now she was still too close to Steve. He occupied so much space in her thoughts, his voice whispering in her ear, his little explanations for the mysteries she found in this world, his last words so freshly stitched together, echoing in her dreams. It was the violence of how he had been ripped from her that she still felt on her skin. But, maybe –

"But I did so often, on Themyscira." Diana looked up from her cup, to Etta, tilting her head. "You do not?"

"I –" Etta raised her eyes, still avoiding looking to Diana. "Of course, there were a few men who were interested, though not always keen that I didn't want to give up my job. And um, when girls are younger, you know sometimes they – I had quite – friendship, maybe a bit romantic, with –"

The phone rang, in the far corner of the room. It hadn't done that before.

Etta met Diana's eyes, and rose at once from her chair, crossing the room to answer it. 

"Yes. Yes, this is Miss Candy."

After a few more moments, Etta looked to Diana again, and mouthed one word.

_Maru._

* * *

_I know they have seen me._

_They put it in the papers. Near Pleaux. That was a mistake. Maybe they want the public to watch for me, but now I know they're near. I could go to ground._

_No, I couldn't. It's true, they have me on the run. I have to be more careful now about where I stop, whom I speak to. I should avoid being seen or spoken to at all, but it's so much trouble to survive that way. Without a patron. Ludendorff was good for that. He let me be when he could, provided what I needed, and I had no reason to look at anyone else. And no one else wanted to look at me._

_I like to think that was my face. I like the fear more than the hypocrisy._

_But I've started working again. I need to make provisions. I have reconceived my capsules for strength, using materials I've collected along the way. The little bag I bought in that first village is brimming with my makeshift vials, tossed glass bottles and rifle shells. And this bit of paper. There are two poisons I could mix with what I have now. I made one chloroform agent. Tested both my creations on horses and rats and geese – not ideal, but what I have. The chloroform killed the goose and the rat. They were fragile, they came apart between my fingers._

_I've thought about mixing a poison, dropping it somewhere. Leaving it in some town square to be found, to spread. It might distract them. It might warn them. Get the fuck off my trail._

_But I did not. Not yet. It is risky, if they are close. It would take time. I can make it to the mountains._

_I will have to walk through the mountains, through a pass. I cannot cross the border, I have no papers, and the French will know to watch for me. But I can make it through the mountains. I can make something to keep me warm, to keep me strong. It will destroy some pieces of me, but that I expect. I can survive that._

_I wonder if she is coming. If she is the one who is following me. How she followed us before, how she found us. Not like a hunter but like an angel, she appeared so fast. I expect to see her around every tree, every ripped-up sidewalk corner, across every street. Suddenly she would be there, and this time, would she kill me? It would be so easy for a creature like her, surely I would also come apart in her hands._

_I don't understand. Why she left me alive I want to ask her, if I live that long._

_No, what I want is to reach Spain. Maybe she can follow me there, she wears no uniform. But then I will have more advantages, my own language, my own papers, my own possessions and my flasks and burners and no more photos in the papers. I can walk freely, and avoid the avenging angel. If that is what she is. Maybe, if I had the tools, I could trap her. It's a fantastical thought, for I saw her run through fire, toss aside bullets. What kind of creature doesn't burn?_

_I long to know that. Everything must burn. Entropy does not allow survivors._

_I will see the mountains soon. I make one more capsule, cyanide. I do not test it. I think of it again, think of leaving it in an unwatched drink or stew. I think of the possessions I could perhaps steal, maybe even identity papers, maybe even supplies I need._

_Or I would draw her all the quicker to me. And I want none of that, not her, not the French nor the Germans not the noose. I would sooner burn._

* * *

This was the kind of thing Diana would do. Introduce herself so kindly to a pair of bewildered French farmers, explain their mission so completely that Etta was sure she could hear the old men back in London cringing, and then proceed to the fields and stand among a flock of geese. It did seem to be working. Diana was confident they were on Dr. Maru's trail, and it would make sense that the doctor would head for the Pyrenees. And it was good that Diana seemed to know what she was doing, because Etta was busy finding their lodgings and their transports and handling their expenses, all of which Diana found perplexing. Etta supposed she should at least be glad Diana had forgone a sword and shield, and had agreed to a sensible long coat and hat, even with her golden rope still looped beneath. 

But she was still so eye-catching, a tall, dark figure in this stretch of countryside. This had been a gray day, a thin layer of snow lingering on the field, and the cold seeped into Etta's boots as she waited. After ten minutes, Diana returned from standing amongst the geese. A few of them followed her back toward the farmhouse, but she was looking straight to Etta. "She was here, maybe three days ago."

"The geese told you that, did they?"

Diana looked down to a goose that was waddling by her ankle. "They don't talk, exactly, but yes. A woman made strange smoke and killed one of them."

Etta's eyes must have gone very wide, as Diana watched her, and asked, "Is something wrong?"

"I –"

But then, Etta held up her hands. "No, no that's – perfectly all right, yes, I – let's just keep going then."

"She went in that direction." Diana nods southwest. "Toward the town. We can ask there if anyone has seen her. Or she might have taken supplies somewhere."

"And I'll be looking for a telephone house to call headquarters." And not tell them they were getting their directions from a goose. Etta guessed even their wonder woman would not get away with such a thing. 

But they continued on this way for several days, closing in on the mountains that waited in the distance. The geese were hardly Diana's last interview. She spoke to many others, and was never even slightly self-conscious. As eccentric a partner as she was, Etta could tell Diana knew how to pick out her witnesses. It was a talent Etta was accustomed to seeing, and it was true, she thought to herself, that if the service _could_ use the witnesses Diana did, they certainly would. Still, beyond their feathered and hoofed friends, Diana spoke to schoolboys playing with sticks in a barren orchard, a chemist's assistant, a farmhand, a nurse who stepped outside her little hospital to smoke cigarettes. She gave them advice, how to calm cattle, how to properly hold a sword even when it was just a stick. Sometimes it distracted her, especially if they came across beggars, or the homeless, or still some refugees from the war. But they all often gave her glimpses of the mystery woman who passed through, a scarf always hiding her face.

"She hasn't poisoned anyone human yet," Etta said once, while they walked through a small village square.

"It would give her away," Diana answered.

It was just outside a mountain village, along the Port de Pailhères, that they found their first, solid piece of evidence. Etta noticed it flapping in the snow, a few feet from a low fencepost. She wouldn't have thought much of it, but there were so few people here, and none who were likely to drop a scrap of paper. When she plucked it from the fence post, it has already spent time in the snow. The ink bled onto her fingers as she unfolded it, and what letters were still legible, at least, meant nothing to her. 

"It's her handwriting," Diana said, holding the scrap up in the white winter sunlight. "I remember it, but most of it is so faded I can't make it out. She's used Classical Greek this time."

"What does it say?"

Diana's eyes ran over the paper again and again, as it flapped between her hands. She pressed her lips together, and her eyebrows furrowed, concern growing across her features.

"'Everything must burn.'" She folded the scrap up again, and slipped it into her coat pocket. "That's what it says."

Etta found an inn on the outskirts of the village, an old post for travelers through the mountains. Snow was falling again, and though Diana never seemed to mind the thought of sleeping in the grass and snow outside, Etta much preferred a fire and a hot meal. They ate mutton stew in their small room, sitting close to the grate, silent at first as their spoons clinked against their bowls. Maybe both hungry, but neither had said much for hours, since they had found those remains of Dr. Maru's notes.

Eventually, Etta stood, to stoke the fire. Once the flames were climbing high enough, she finally found the question that had kept slipping away from her.

"Diana?"

The other woman looked up, lifting her eyes from the table between them. "Yes?"

"If we catch up with her." Etta returned the iron to its place by the grate, turned to sit down once more, though she met Diana's eyes as she did. "You'll – take her to the French authorities?"

Diana didn't hesitate, exactly. But she thought over the question, her eyes falling once more.

"I don't know that it's my place to do anything different. What else could I do?"

"You _could_ do just about anything you wanted, I'd think," Etta said, her voice mild. Even so, Diana's look back to her was sharp.

"You think I should kill her?"

"I just meant –"

She didn't know, entirely, what she had meant. Who was likely to stop Diana, regardless of what decision she made? 

"- well, you did kill General Ludendorff, and that – that other –"

Etta couldn't bring herself to say the word. Diana found it all the more strange. 

"Killing Ares was my fore-ordinance. Nothing else would have stopped him." As for Ludendorff, she had been mistaken. But she had also killed him in the midst of battle, a circumstance she would have rather avoided, and yet, she did not regret the action of it. He, too, seemed unlikely to be stopped any other way.

But now, there was no war. Now she had another way. Her silence stretched, as they finished their stew, as the fire crackled next to them.

"When I was a girl," Diana said, "my mother used to tell me about mankind. That they were just and wise, strong and passionate, but easily corrupted. I thought if I could stop that corruption, mankind would return to how they were supposed to be."

"Turns out men aren't that easy to fix?" But Etta smiled, and Diana, seeing this, returned her smile. 

"No, I don't think I can 'fix' them anymore. But what Ares wanted was to kill everyone, because they were not how he thought they should be. I cannot be the same."

"Maybe," Etta answered. "But our Doctor Poison isn't just that, is she?"

"No." Diana looked down again, and shook her head. "But that is for you, not me."

 _Actually, it's for the men_. The ones who would be judges and lawyers and politicians, who would decide about Isabel Maru. But Etta didn't point this out. She had something else to ask.

"And where you come from?"

Diana blinked up. "What about it?"

"How did you decide, then, about things like this? Did you have courts like ours?"

For a moment, Etta imagined it, courts, a government, all women. But Diana only looked mystified by the question.

"We had disputes to settle, sometimes. But no, I – no Amazon would ever do what that doctor did. No Amazon would ever kill or hurt her sister. No one broke our rules, except –"

Her gaze dropped again, as she said it, as she realized it. "- except for me, when I left. That is why I can never go back."

Etta did hesitate, and her voice was timid when she spoke. "That doesn't sound especially just either, does it? You were only trying to help us."

Diana thought back to those scholars' debates, to the treatises she had read since childhood, the long considerations of justice and fairness, to her tutors' lectures on ethics and the various schools of moral philosophy. There were dozens of answers she could choose from, of whether the Amazons were right to banish her, of whether her actions in Man's World had been morally permissible, of whether she had some duty to ensure Isabel Maru never poisoned anyone again. She could recite these answers, were she back in one of those debates in Themyscira, in the senators' chambers, or just talking with her sisters.

But now, in this cold room, with their cold task ahead of them, Diana was not sure she knew any answer. In her silence, Etta rose, and collected up their bowls to take downstairs. There was no reason to stay awake later than needed. They were so close to the doctor, they would need to leave early the next morning. 

Diana was awake before dawn. She sat by a candle, the scrap of paper open between her hands again. Etta watched her as she rose, unable to make out her face in the dark. She thought about saying good morning, seeing if they could scrape together some kind of breakfast. But she stayed quiet, instead walking from the room without a word. She could visit the privy, and then bring up a cup of tea. There was no use in any more noise than that.

Dawn had just begun to frost the eastern horizon as Etta stepped outside. She made her way through the snow, shivering against the cold, pulling her coat more tightly around her. It was so quiet so early. Perhaps she should have heard it, the footsteps breaking in the snow nearby. The low breathing among the nearby trees. As she walked back toward the inn, all she could think of was its little kitchen, of hoping a few embers might still be burning in its stove.

She never saw the shadow step out from the trees. By the time Etta turned at the approaching footsteps, there was only a cloud of strange smoke, and the world disappeared.

* * *

_I shouldn't stop now. Yet if I use the capsules too quickly, they will tear my veins and muscles. I would like to see that, but it can wait. Now I want to get through the mountains. They would have caught up with me, I'm sure, they were so close to me. I don't know if this will help, if this will make any difference. The woman,_ formidable _, she could move so fast. But with my capsules I can move fast, too. I can lift her companion so easily, I can climb fast as a fox through the snow. The cold means nothing to me. When I use the capsules._

_It must be something like her, like what she is. I wonder if being what she is rips at her the way my capsules rip at me._

_But now I am exhausted with it. Now I count my heartbeats, and I wait. My coat is too thin and ragged for this cold, though the sun is out, and there is no sign of a storm in the distance. Any storm, whether from the sky, or from the woman, who must now know her companion is gone._

_Maybe I can do it now. Leave her companion and go on my way. Give her companion something that will delay her coming after me, until I am far enough over the border. Killing her will only send the woman faster to me, but maybe I can modify it, create sickness, or madn_

* * *

Etta woke to bright sunlight and white slopes as far as she could see. The snow had to be several feet deep, piled on large rocks like the one she was leaned against. The sky was clear, yet still so light, it seemed to blend with the mountain slopes. Her face was numb in the cold. When she tried to raise her hands to press them to her cheeks, she found they had been bound together. She heard a scratching noise, and looked up to see her infamous Dr. Maru, also seated against a slab of stone, pressing a pen to a fluttering page. Or trying to.

She blinked up to Etta, and she shook the pen. "Ink's frozen," she rasped, voice barely rising above the wind. She wore a long coat and a black scarf tied tight around her neck, the dark gashes along her mouth and cheek vivid against her pale face. Neither the coat nor scarf looked warm enough to help her here, but she never shivered, showed no sign of the cold if it bothered her.

Etta didn't know what to say. She started breathing rather quickly as Maru rose to her feet, folding up the paper and putting it and the pen in her coat pocket. As she stepped toward her, through the snow, Etta forced herself to think of something.

"How did – did you –"

Maru smiled at her, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a tiny steel capsule. "Gives me strength, maybe thirty minutes each. Don't have so many, I have to be careful with them."

She crept closer, and Etta wondered if perhaps she could overpower her now. Even with her hands tied, it might not be so difficult if Maru was weak, maybe hungry and exhausted from her time running. But as though she had the same thought, Maru returned the capsule to its pocket and this time pulled out a small pistol. 

"Stay there, miss."

Etta glanced at the pistol, taking measure of it. "What do you want?"

"To get past the border." She gestured with the pistol, vaguely west. "I know you're following me. With her. Just need her to be looking for you, while I get away from here."

"She'll be too fast for you," Etta said. "You won't get away."

Maru's mouth twisted into a smile. It even lifted her eyes and, in another circumstance, might have been pleasant to look at. "We'll see," she answered.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the steel capsule again. Holding it carefully to her nose, she cracked the capsule, and a thin, silver mist erupted from it. Maru breathed this in, and it collected up into her flesh, giving her face an unearthly shine, as though she were turning to ice. Her smile grew, but now into something strange, like a party mask. Etta shoved herself back against the rocks as Maru moved toward her again, and reached once more into her pocket.

There was a loud crunch of snow behind them. It was the only warning, perhaps deliberate. Enough that Maru spun around, pulled out her pistol, and fired. The bullet _pinged_ and ricocheted, up the side of the mountain. Diana lowered her wrists, and lunged forward.

Again, Maru fired the pistol, and again, Diana deflected the bullet, her silver cuffs glinting from beneath her coat sleeves. She swung out, knocking the pistol from Maru's hands. It slid off into the snow, and Maru slammed a fist at her instead, hitting her in the stomach. Diana did gasp, the blow landing hard, but she raised her arm to block the next. Maru was strong, impossibly so, but she was clearly not trained to fight, not the way Diana was, or Ludendorf had been. Though it took longer than it might have, Diana shoved Maru down into the snow. Maru turned over, crawling to reach the pistol once more, but Diana beat her to it. She lifted from the ground, pressed it between her hands, and snapped it in half, tossing the pieces away. 

Rather than look back to Maru, Diana stepped over to Etta, tearing through her bonds with nothing more than a quick _snap_ between her fingers. "Are you all right?"

Etta nodded. "I'm a little cold, but I'll be fine."

Diana reached out to her, pressing one hand to her shoulder for a few seconds and smiling at her. But then she turned to their quarry. Maru hadn't tried to run, not yet, but she did pull herself out of the snow, rising to her feet.

"Why did you do this?" Diana stepped now toward the doctor, who did not back away. "Why would you make these awful things? Why would you let them be used on innocents, who could not hurt you?"

Maru said nothing. The wind picked up, whipping her hair along her face, but she stayed very still against it. 

"At the factory, why didn't you kill me?"

Without pause, Diana answered, never considering that she could simply refuse to.

"Because I could have. Because it was not how I want to use my power, and it isn't now."

"Well, then…" Maru slipped one foot behind her, taking a step back, her hands reaching into her pockets. "You're in luck…"

She didn't get any farther. Diana reached for looped rope along her skirt, and before Dr. Maru could pull out any gas or poison, Diana had whipped out her lasso, lashing it across the space between them. It wrapped around Maru's arms, tight around her elbows, forcing her hands open. Even before Diana spoke, the rope grew warm in her hands, its glow burning to a bright gold. 

"Is this you?" Her voice trembled as she asked it. It was too late now, but already Diana was not sure she wanted to know the answer. She didn't know what it would offer her, or if she wanted what it could. And yet even if her voice shook, her eyes were clear, her grip on the lasso firm. She would hear it, whether she wanted it or not. "Did he corrupt you, or is this what you are?"

Maru knew who _he_ was. With just those words, she heard his voice again. She saw the fire, and the shadow that like this creature would not burn. The deep, earth-shaking words that rang out across the airfield, thunder rolling through the smoke, _Destroy her, Diana_. It was a voice she had never heard before, never imagined, and yet she knew it. She knew it in the letters of her notebook, her formulas, the breeze that brushed over her scrapped ideas and let her consider them anew. That joyful fury that burst through his words, _they all do_ , was the crack of glass, and strangled screams and the bubbling and burning of her own flesh as she had tested her work. It was the fire coming for her at last.

But it hadn't. And this is what frightened her. This woman's voice, angry yet desperate, her grip fierce and strong and _determined_ not to destroy her. The lasso wasn't so tight as to stop her breath, and yet she gasped, knees buckling as though the slope had fallen out from under her, and nothing held her at all.

Though the rope around her was hot, Isabel Maru felt only the cold. She closed her eyes, and answered, the only way she could. 

"I don't know."

**Author's Note:**

> Dear recipient: 
> 
> I really enjoyed writing for this prompt, in particular the chance to write from the point of view of a character I hadn't thought about so much before. There are a couple small nods to the Wonder Woman comics, particularly Diana being able to communicate with animals, that I couldn't resist including. Special thanks to my betas for your edits and advice about how this fic worked. And thank you, recipient, for your lovely prompt - I hope you like this fic, and that you have a wonderful holiday season and a very happy Yuletide.


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